Cartoons and Comics: The Rise of the Graphic Novel, Comics, and Superheroes


Today on the blog we are going to talk about comic and cartoons and their uses in the classroom. We will look at 3 different comic/cartoon creation sites called Toondoo, Pixton, and Make Beliefs Comix.

First is Toondoo-I made each of my comics focusing on the steps of a Readers Advisory Interview. How do we get the right books in the kids hands?


RA Interview

Overall, Toondoo was an overall easy comic application to use. It is very simple- but did not allow for much customization. I think this would be a great application to use in the elementary age levels. I had only a few problems with using it. I think that since it really only allowed for 3 panels that I had to shove more information or conversation in each panel. This was made more difficult since the text did not text wrap inside the bubble- so you would have very long bubbles or multiple talking bubbles.

  I also think this application would be great for elementary level work (basic conversations in another language- foreign language classes, etc). 

Pixton- I loved this application for the digital age students!



I loved this application and the customization  available to the user. Not only can you change the expressions of the characters, but also the body language and even clothing. You can also determine the length of the comic also unlike Toondoo. I think this would be something great for upper middle and high school level students. In my previous school, my ninth graders would do a research project and after they wrote the paper they made a multimedia project. Many of my students would opt for drawing comics about their research topics. So this would be a perfect application for them.

Make Beliefs Comix

This application was pretty cool in the fact that this application is a blend between the two above applications. This application gives you the ability to change expression on various characters. I think that this application would be a great transition for lower middle school and upper elementary that want more selection. This was one of the only comic applications that did not have an embed code or a way to save other than to email or print. 

All three applications are very useful. They all have a wide variety of selections to make an interesting comic and all were relatively easy to use- they also have tutorials to help new users out. 

Ways to use Comics in your Library:

  • Create posters of procedures in the library 
  • Create posters of expectations in the library (of students, teachers, and librarians)
  • Comics in the library newsletters
  • Multi-media projects 
  • Comic relief (when the school year gets stressful)
Sharing with your colleagues - giving tutorials and showing teachers how they can be used in the classroom. 

Comments

  1. Heather BotheJuly 14, 2017 at 8:25 AM

    This was spot on. I am an elementary teacher so I had a hard time with Pixton probably because I didn't think my students would be able to figure all of this out. It was a little overwhelming for me. :-) I definitely think that ToonDoo is perfect for my younger students. I used Make Beliefs with my 5th graders last year and we found it limiting because of the limit to the number of panels but figured out a work around. When we have a longer story to tell we just make additional panels and then copy all of them into a Word document to have it all together in one place.

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  2. UnknownJuly 17, 2017 at 12:03 AM

    I loved how you were able to incorporate ToonDoo to create the steps for the Reading Advisory Interview. I remember doing this my first semester, but I really like how you incorporated here with a comic strip. Great job!

    Narda Lugo

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  3. UnknownAugust 2, 2017 at 9:26 PM

    I agree with you about using Pixton for upper-level students. I have taught both high school and middle school, and both age groups would not have a problem navigating this site. I always have my middle school students create digital cartoons when we study The Giver. My students who hate to draw are always relieved when they find out we are "drawing" online using a website.

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